What's new for Structures in the 2023 product releases

[pawelpiechnik]

Please take a look at this holistic overview of what's new for Structures in the 2023 releases. Structural Engineering, Detailing and Fabrication for Construction included; We'd be happy to take your feedback on it.

https://blogs.autodesk.com/revit/2022/04/11/whats-new-in-autodesk-structures-2023/

regards

[DonBAE]

Excellent work by the product team.

Can focus shift to the following:

• Full Rework of the Robot Manual to match the quality of other software packages in the industry. The current manual is disjointed, missing or incomplete documentation for various topics, does not provide any insight on the actual use of some of the methods/tools in robot but merely just echos what is shown on the graphical interface.
• Correct the numerous bugs in the graphical interface. The current GUI seems that it just keeps having things shoe horned into it so there are dialogs with buttons that do nothing, inconsistent behavior among the same operations, some pieces of the interface completely break when the 'esc' key is pressed, some table inputs are coded poorly and break elements such as the support definition table. (also please please make nodes display larger, using the page up hotkey increase the size of all elements and even at the highest setting nodes are still barely visible and in fashion with other bugs no longer honor the node color setting)
• Prepare actual meaningful tutorials that have discussions about Robot's analysis procedure and why you click an button or option not just a monotone voice saying click run then click maps-mx. Explain what run is doing with the current options, explain why we are looking at Mx, etc. there are already tutorials for general interface use what is needed are the following:
  
  
  1. Composite Steel Building using the Add In, inclusive of lateral analysis. (The current steel tutorial is of the most basic industrial open single story steel structure type)
  2. Concrete flat slab structure with drop panels and concrete shear walls, inclusive of lateral analysis, slab reinforcement, Column design, and wall design. (the current concrete tutorial is of the most basic flat plate and does not cover the provided slab reinforcement tool at all, in fact nothing covers how to use the provided slab reinforcement tool.)
  3. Tutorials for each of the RC Element Design tools. (The documentation for these tools is non-existent so everything currently must be learned by trial and error. It's not even possible to view or define load combinations in these tool so it's a leep of faith in trusting the results)
  4. Tutorials for each of the Connection Design tools.
  5. Tutorials for the Section Definition tool and how to use a user defined section in a model. (there is currently almost no documentation for this tool and the documentation that exists merely shows the GUI and restates what is shown in the GUI with no further explanation.)
  6. Tutorial for the wind simulation and show how to use this tool in compliance with building codes. (The documentation for this tool does not provide any guidance on how to actually use it it merely restates what is shown on the GUI, If no one at Autodesk can provide this tutorial then I question the inclusion of this tool in Robot as anything but a novelty)
  7. Tutorial for the new Load Takedown analysis for a multi-story steel building, multi-story concrete building (inclusive of a wall transferring out on a beam), multi-story light-framed bearing wall building with uni-direction floor framing (again with some walls transferring out on beams).

[pawelpiechnik]

Dear @DonBAE 

Indeed, tutorials, whether for beginners or advanced users are very important and demanding when it comes to interdisciplinary expertise, skills and amount of investments required.

Like in many others, in this matter we are also symbiotic and supportive for the ecosystem of experts who provide added value to the technology and the users in this form. Please inspect  a quickly collected list of those who provide different sorts (for various user maturity levels) of tutorials for Robot Structural Analysis.

I'd like also encourage the Forum to share your best sources of knowledge.

Quick Start Tutorials
	https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/robot-structural-analysis-products/learn/caas/qsguides/robot-...
Advanced Tutorials
	https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY-ggSrSwbZqow_60fiqJwS69mg1nQMzk
	https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT3tf_U7rIBDzN92XL45geMx-wGR9Tnl5
	https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjKteTh4QcTOGNO7dd7yeoqHJP0gSG53B
	https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOc6525rmSQyI1ZW1ZAURGVC0Xd9e-ISV
	https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIC-6THeeFuaAedMgnoxoikketYaZNYHL
	https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIItX5NVFEg7f4w2rkPIckgGIiDCgW0kl
	https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcap69MtrfC6syXtDV2jLaA/about
	https://www.youtube.com/user/p0m91/videos
	https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKM8C2S0RaMXjQDH2XG3mZne2ok-hcR9f
	https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5x6tsm9pOc1bFGxPsV3iFd6Iy1dKatxn
	https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6G8OOp318Z1MFzJj5T8uWw
	https://www.youtube.com/c/StructuralAnalysisEngineer/videos
	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRy01eccCPg&list=PLuAUsaWgaIun4N8BeX2aHMGfJYW3Ewq2L
	https://www.youtube.com/user/cevb25/videos
	https://www.youtube.com/c/Decodebd/playlists
	https://www.facebook.com/groups/574214886299526/
Books & E-learning
	https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/099151811X/ref=acr_dpproductdetail_text?ie=UTF8&showViewpoint...
	https://www.amazon.com/Autodesk-Robot-Structural-Analysis-Professional/dp/0991518136
	https://www.virginiae-learning.com/collections/autodesk-robot-tutorials-rsa
Other
	https://books.apple.com/pl/book/wind-load-simulation-in-autodesk-robot-structural-analysis/id9040435...
	https://bimandbeam.typepad.com/files/robot-structural-analysis-professional-wind-simulator-validatio...
Training Services Providers	There also regional training services providers for in-person, expert lead training experience

regards

[DonBAE]

@pawelpiechnik I appreciate the response and links but with all do respect you seem to be missing the point. You keep sending us off to various third party videos provided on another party's website which address completely outdated versions of Robot. We are paying thousands of dollars to use this software are we really to believe that funds are being so mismanaged that the people most qualified to provide insight on how to use the program they created are unable, or perhaps more apt unwilling, to provide adequate documentation and learning material?

The problem with sending us off to some third party is who knows if that information is correct, the person is not employed by Autodesk and has no access to the source code. These folks are working off of the same poor information sources we all have access to and forming their own opinions which may or may not be accurate.  In addition to perhaps incorrect information regarding Robot some of these individuals lack some basic engineering background and suggest entirely unsafe procedures.

The most prominent example is the wind simulation tool, I keep beating this dead horse, literally ever forum post or youtube video is someone guessing about or asking how to apply the tool in accordance with their code with responses that range from showing a pretty diagram with no real meaning to linking to the one white paper in existence that doesn't answer the question. One of the more prominent members here on these forums provided what on the surface is a very helpful post trying to show a procedure to get results aligned with a building codes envelope procedure, unfortunately this approach is fundamentally flawed a wind tunnel simulation should really not align with the code simplified procedure in many instances. Autodesk wrote the wind simulation algorithms and as such the only individuals qualified to actually show how to use this tool in accordance with the various building codes is Autodesk but for some reason you refuse to provide anything beyond the current white paper which again does not at all describe the entire procedure. The white paper shows agreement with an actual wind tunnel test but provides absolutely no discussion about what parameters were used to generate the wind profile used within Robot. Perhaps the real problem is Autodesk did not actually develop this tool but merely acquired it so there is no one qualified to document it, if that is the case then the tool has no actual value beyond marketing images.

Again with emphasis we are paying thousands of dollars to use this software why can Autodesk not spend a few hundred on producing educational material of substance, I image several thousand was spent on just changing the Autodesk icon recently? 

[ORLLT]

i agree with @DonBAE ! every structural engineer i've talked to about wind simulation came with the same conclusion : they don't use it. Because it is obscure, and nobody really seems to know how it works. And you can't justify your calculation with "We used this black box that the editor tells us nothing about". So we stick to the code, and apply wind loading painfully by hand.

Documentation and tutorials should be provided by autodesk, not by third party ! forums and all are great, but in the end there must be only one reference that can be relied upon above all, and this must be the developpers.

[zeeblake]

I fully agree with @DonBAE. Moreover, Robot performs advanced calculations that other programs lack (like global buckling analysis for example), but these calculations don't have any proper documentation, so, how are you supposed to use them in real projects?

The real important point here is that structural analysis software is not like CAD or 3D rendering software. If you do something wrong in a rendering, you lose money/time. If you do something wrong in a structural analysis and design, there's risk of loss of life, and very serious legal consequences.

I have said it in the past, but I'll repeat it here because it's the same topic: What I miss the most is the step-by-step explanation of how to design a complete structure from a real world project (from beginning to end) with at least three different buildings: one in steel, another one in RC, and another one in timber, also considering different types of foundations (footings, mats, piles). And these three projects should be developed applying even the most advanced Robot features (nonlinear, global buckling, wind, etc, etc, etc), and explaining very clearly how Robot should be used so that the results are on the safe side and not on the unsafe side. When something is risky of becoming unsafe, the documentation should clearly warn about that.

This is what Robot lacks the most: to clearly explain how to use all its features in the context of the high responsibility that structural design implies.

[zeeblake]

And, as a further addition to my post: how are you supposed to create all the RC drawings for all the RC elements in a 14-story building? That's a huge number of beams, columns, slabs, foundations... and managing all the drawings is a nightmare if you follow what the help/documentation says. I tend to believe there must be a way of making it convenient rather than a nightmare, but it should be explained in the documentation.

In other words: the current help and documentation can be used for simple demos only (and sometimes not even that, because many basic things like foundation mats are not explained at all). When you face a real project, the current documentation is not adequate.